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Author’s Note: This bridge is part of the series on the Bridges of Copenhagen, which you can click here for a guide to the bridges worth visiting, even by bike.

7.5 kilometers long, connecting Copenhagen with Malmö in Sweden, the Øresund Bridge, judging from a photographer’s point of view, may look like the European version of “The Bridge to Nowhere,” a pun that was first used in Alaska, thanks to Sarah Palin’s bill to build a bridge to an island in the Pacific. The Øresund Strait, which connects the North and Baltic Seas, is one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the world, where two-thirds of the year on average brings forth either fog, storms, high winds or even a combination of the three. Upon my visit in 2011, the strait was so foggy that one can barely see the bridge, as seen from the town of Dragør. Furthermore, despite the warm humid August weather, steam was coming out of the water, approaching the shores, as seen below:

Yet, travelling across the bridge, which features a tunnel on the Danish side, a tall cable-stayed suspension bridge, and a double-decker featuring the upper level for cars and lower level for rail traffic, is an experience every bridge lover and tourist should experience once in a lifetime. I had a chance to take a ride across the bridge by taxi, going to Malmö. And despite a steep cost for the 15 kilometer trip across the now 15-year old bridge, the trip was well worth it, as seen below:

But how the bridge was built has a history of its own, which featured many delays because of hidden bombs, broken machinery because of drilling attempts, high winds, construction accidents, and other items. But how the Danish and Swedish engineers and builders managed to construct this bridge within a given time span, and make the sleak structure elegant and a record breaker can be found through a documentary below as well as a text, which you can click on here:

From an author’s perspective, crossing the bridge and seeing the view of the strait was like a Trans-Atlantic flight: it was nothing but water for the 10 minutes I went across. Yet going through the really tall, cable-stayed towers, lit up at night, brought forth awe in a way that so many people, who built the bridge, had risked their lives to accomplish not just a feat, but the feat. The feat was not only connecting Denmark and Sweden, nor was it connecting Europe from Scandanavia to the Mediterranean Sea. It was the ability to connect lands from hundreds of kilometers away. Since its opening in 1999, at least 40 crossings longer than this one have been added to a world map that has gotten smaller by the year. And while most of them have originated from China, more ambitious projects are surely in the works, including the Bering Strait crossing and possibly connecting North America with Europe over the Atlantic. These may take a generation to complete, but the Øresund Bridge shows clearly that anything is possible as far as bridge construction is concerned.